AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 March 1926, Page 5

AUSTRALIA

- ■ - ■ •— (Aurtr&ii&n and N.Z. Cable Aasociati mi. > BUSH FIRES. MELBOURNE, March 4. The bush fires are still raging, but, by a great effort, the fire fighters have saved the phosphate mill. SNIAFIL TESTS. AIELBOURNE, Alarch 5. Eight bales of sniafil (artificial wool) arrived from Italy and will.be distributed amongst the local mills for the purpose of experiments. N.S.W. COUNCIL. SYDNEY, March 4. The Government suffered two more reverses in the Legislative Council, when it rejected a bill providing for the absorption of the municipality of Waterloo by the City Council, and a bill designed to confer adult franchise on persons with three months’ residence in shires municipalities, and to upset last year’s shire municipal elections, and hold fresh elections al the end of this year. The voting was 35 to 31, and 33 to 30 respectively. Both bills had previously been rejected by the Council. UNWANTED COMMUNIST. AIELBOURNE, March 5. In the House of Representatives, the case in which a New Zealand citizen was recently sentenced at the Dunedin Police Court for having in his possession Communist literature, was the subject of a series of questions to Air Bruce, who replied that it was a, fact in the case of Kenneth AlcLean Baxter, that the Magistrate suspended sentence on condition that Baxter left the Dominion. When it was brought under the notice of the Al mister of Home and Territories that Baxter intended leaving for Australia, authority for his entry was refused, and notification was telegraphed to New Zealand. Baxter, however, had made all arrangements for departure and had his furniture aboard the vessel about to leave New Zealand, and was unable to get it off He had previously resided in Australia for seven years. His wife was a native of the Commonwealth. Baxter was restricted from landing in Australia, but in view of his wife’s health, which involved a serious operation at an early date, he would be permitted to land on temporary exemption for six months during which period the Derailment would be in close touch with him